Blood & Thunder: Compiled 2 (Patreon)

Yi Zhen, Young Mistress of the Indomitable Ocean Sword Sect, kowtowed before the Elders of the sect. Only three of the sect’s five Elders were present, Elder Meng Jin was in the Capitol overseeing the sect’s part of the upcoming Grueling Gorge Tournament while Elder Yi Shi (who was both her father and Grandmaster of the Sect) was serving this month’s rotation with the Imperial Army in driving off the barbarian horse lords to the north.

“This Young Mistress honors the Elders of the Indomitable Ocean Sword Sect,” she said, not raising from her kowtow.

“Why did you lower yourself by attending to the stranger?” Elder Yao Fen asked, firmly but not harshly.

“Because should the stranger have turned hostile, the mortal servants would have been slaughtered by the time he could be suppressed. As the sect’s Young Mistresses, this Yi Zhen could not ask one of the disciples to undertake a task she was unwilling to. Additionally, had the stranger been hostile, I would have been the disciple most able to either suppress or delay them until such time that the Elders could arrive.”

“Rise, Yi Zhen,” Elder Jin Shui spoke up, his fingers laced together in front of his face. She did so, and he continued. “We cannot continue dancing around the stranger’s presence among us, tiptoeing like children up past their bedtime. I propose we send him with some of our Disciples to deal with some of the troubles that the surrounding villages have approached us with. It will allow us to gain a measure of his character, where he sits in regards to his cultivation, as well as what manner of techniques he uses.”

“I concur,” Elder Zhao Hue agreed, before turning to Yi Zhen. “As you have already taken it upon yourself to serve as his warden, he shall accompany you as you deal with a number of requests. Speak to Disciple Yang Zhi, have him teach you the [Tongue of Sun and Moon], then select a number of requests. Your only restriction is that you must arrive at the Grueling Gorge Tournament in time to participate.”

“The Yi Zhen shall do so, Honored Elders,” she said as she kowtowed to the trio of Elders, before she rose and departed.

She sought out Disciple Yang Zhi, who was in the Archives as usual, and requested he teach her the technique that allowed him to understand the stranger. The technique was not difficult, learning it took a mere hour before Disciple Yang Zhi declared her as having the basics to a satisfactory level, but it was a drain on her qi to maintain it. Departing from the Archives, and giving Yang Zhi her gratitude before she did so, she made her way to the Administrative Offices.

Any member of the sect could see the requests the outlying villages brought to them, mostly the requests were about bandits or rampaging spirit beasts. If a disciple wished, they could petition to be permitted to leave in order to resolve a given request. So long as the Administrative Officers deemed the disciple’s Cultivation sufficient they were unlikely to deny a petition. Having two disciples petitioning together made the slim likelihood of denial even lower.

Yi Zhen looked over the requests currently awaiting petitions. There were a dozen that she discarded, as they bore the hallmarks of being appropriate for the newest disciples of the sect. Simple assignments, used to allow them to experience the chaotic rush of combat, gain a familiarity of using their Azure Swords in live combat, while not allowing them to be overwhelmed. Of the remaining requests, there were three: to eliminate the Devouring Ghost Gang and bring the head of the Hungry Specter Qin Liang as proof, to vanquish a Blazing Seven Venom Serpent, and to settle a property dispute between House Xian and House Peng. Of the requests, the first two were the ones that would probably let her observe the most about him.

Decision made, she would begin with the Blazing Seven Venom Serpent before eliminating the Devouring Ghost Gang, she filled out a petition, spoke to the Administrative Officer on duty, explained her assignment, and handed the petition form to the older woman. She had completed similar requests on her own in the past, so the mortal woman stamped an approval on the petition before waving her off.

Giving the woman a bow, Yi Zhen made her way to the room that the stranger, Necahual, had been placed in. Such a strange name, one she wasn’t sure she liked the taste of. But, until he proved to be hostile to either the sect or the people under its protection, she would hold judgment.

Yi Zhen entered the room, to find Necahual out of bed and stretching his limbs. He looked up upon her opening the door, but continued his exercises. Now that he was no longer in a bed, she could take a better measure of his appearance. He was of average height, neither particularly tall nor short, but his build was much broader than any cultivator she’d personally met. His skin was also a dark tan, even more so than most mortal farmers. The clothes he’d washed up in were mostly of lowly materials, though the amount of gold jewelry had been astonishing, but the cut and amount of dyes indicated a high station, be it in whatever sect he’d come from or by way of gratitude from mortal nobles.

Offering him a bow, Yi Zhen spoke, “This Young Mistress greets Necahual, and wishes to speak with you.”

Necahual practically jumped out of his skin, and Yi Zhen felt his qi twist and coil in a strange manner before settling back down. Eyes narrowed, he spoke, “I assume you did not know this technique when last we spoke, or it possesses restrictions that make its use impractical in certain circumstances.”

“You are correct, Disciple Yang Zhi taught me the technique earlier today,” she confirmed, before relaying the decision of the Sect Elders regarding what was to be done with him.

He simply nodded in understanding, before making a request for any items that had been found on him. Particularly any “trophies”. Yi Zhen wasn’t entirely sure she was using the technique correctly, but nonetheless escorted him to where the items washed ashore were being kept.

The way his eyes lit up upon seeing the clay bottle and leather pouch tied to it made her wonder if it was some sort of cultivation reagent. The stone knife was greeted with a nod before he slid it into his belt, the taste of qi rich blood wafting off the artifact. The necklace must have been what he was referring to when he said trophies, for a number of feathers, teeth, and claws dangled from it. All in all, it made him look like a jungle savage. But, he was at least strong enough to have survived the storm, so he must know something of value.

[hr][/hr]

Necahual knelt down to inspect the leaves on the forest floor. The trees here were of a species quite unlike those of home, and the forests weren’t as tightly packed as the jungles surrounding the various cities in Aztlan. Still, the techniques that he had been taught for tracking titans were working quite well here. The lingering traces of smoldering teotl in the titan’s hide left residue where it passed, if one knew how to look for it.

From what Yi Zhen, such an odd name, had told him, the capulli received requests to resolve disputes or hunt down titans regularly. The fact that such things had to be specifically requested seemed odd, but Necahual held his tongue on the matter. He was far from home, surrounded by strangers, and effectively alone. This was not the time to focus on minutiae, and he’d been given a task: find the titan and slay it.

“Necahual?” Yi Zhen asked, approaching from behind him.

“It passed through here, a few hours ago,” he answered, running a leaf through his fingers, feeling the residual, smokey notes of faint teotl. “It’s traveling alone, but the depressions in the earth say that it travels this path often.”

“You are quite skilled at tracking.”

Necahual shrugged, “I was trained to hunt titans like this, as well as administrate. I was considered for the Cuāuhtli, but failed to meet the requisite standards in poetry. Probably for the best, I was always good at chinampa management.”

Looking up at the treetops, Necahual hummed for a moment, consideringly, before wrapping a hand around a small bundle of feathers on his necklace, “I’m going to get a higher viewpoint.”

[Form of the Bound Beast]

Teotl burst from his body, shaped and guided by his will and the body-memory in the feathers. While he was skilled enough in the ability to nagual into the animal’s form and continue to use his teotl while in said form, his father was so skilled that he could shift seamlessly from human to beast to anywhere between, without relying on trophies to guide the shift.

The technique settled, and Necahual hobbled the short distance to one of the trees before climbing up. Teotl allowed him true flight in this form, rather than the gliding that the original animal was limited to, but the feathers on his legs would always make the initial transformation a vulnerable state, until he could get up into the trees.

Looking down, Necahual was satisfied with his height, before leaping off the tree, and spreading his wings. All four of them. They caught the wind, his small body cutting effortlessly through the air, small shifts of his arms, legs, and tail easily controlling his direction and path through the trees. All the while, his eyes continued to follow the trail of the titan.

After five minutes of flight, he alighted on a tree at the edge of a burned clearing. The titan was present, in the center, and surrounded by three humans kneeling before it in the strange way people here did. Necahual’s stomach roiled as he realized what he was seeing. The people were attempting to appease the titan by worshiping it. He’d seen it over a dozen times, before he was sent to join in the battle against the tzitzimime in that strange land. It never worked, all it ever did was delay the end until the titan’s amusement ended or its hunger got the better of it.

Necahual focused on the humans, all three bore weapons of some kind. One had a massive blade, sharp on one edge with a series of rings in the back. Another had a rope wrapped around his arm with a spike attached to one end. The last one carried a spear, a tuft of red hair just below the weapon’s head.

Having gathered the information required, he climbed to a higher perch before leaping off and flying back the way he came. He soon arrived back where Yi Zhen was, and landed on the ground in front of her before returning to human form.

“What did you find?” she asked, with surprise and confusion on her face but focused on the task at hand.

“Our target, as well as three humans, all armed, in a clearing about fifteen minutes walk in that direction,” he answered, pointing.

She nodded, and the two of them made their way silently through the trees, before coming to a stop near the edge of the treeline. Kneeling behind dried out shrubbery, Necahual took in the scene before them. The titan was large, big enough that he could fit inside its head, and maybe half as long as one of the smaller ball fields in Tenochtitlan. Its scales were a rich, vibrant red, with speckles of orange and yellow, like a flame. At various points along its body, small tongues of flame would form, dancing through the air before dying.

Sharing a glance with Yi Zhen, Necahual pointed to himself, then the titan, followed by pointing to her and then pointed three fingers to the titan worshipers. Most of his combat experience was against beasts like it, so it would be better to play to his strengths. She nodded, pulling out a strange cylinder from somewhere within her robes. As one, the two of them burst from the bushes, catching their targets by surprise.

[Declaration of Nobility]

His teotl flowed, forcing the foolish humans to pause as their minds tried to comprehend Necahual’s noble bearing, the generations of duty and service to both human and divine made manifest. It made them slow in reaching for their weapons, giving Yi Zhen time to reach them, a flat blade of crystalline blue sprouting from one end of the cylinder in her hand.

[Ocean Sword Art: Indomitable Crashing Wave]

She fell upon them, her blade immediately severing the head of the one with the rope coiled around his arm. And then Necahual refocused on his own battle.

[Form of the Bound Beast]